2012 historical fantasy short novel, first in the Airship Daedalus
series. In a somewhat alternate 1925, ace pilot Jack McGraw is going
to lead the hunt for Aleister Crowley's agents of chaos. (Released
free of charge by the author.)
It's not clear just which part of this universe came first,
though I think it's the comic series A.E.G.I.S. Tales. There
certainly also exist a radio series, a role-playing game Airship
Daedalus: Retro Pulp Adventure Roleplaying, and this, the first of
four (so far) novels.
In the introduction, Downing explains that this was actually written
after the second novel, and indeed there's some feeling of "pilot
episode" about it; characters are carefully introduced one by one and
the basics of their backstory explained, until we've worked up to an
effective pulp team (the pilot, the doctor, the sharpshooter, the
engineer and the "munitions man"). Yes, of course one of them (and
only one) is A Girl, and of course she's the doctor that being the
closest thing in the list to a female-coded job, and of course she has
a Past with Jack… but she's also the team's magician, because this is
a world with hidden magic in it, something that everyone accepts with
remarkable ease.
Also great big airships, of course. And a smaller one, the Daedalus
of the title, with a perpetual-motion engine and a crew of just these
five player characters, I mean bold heroes.
Jack led the way, carefully leading with his twin pistols.
Of course if one knows much about Crowley it's a little challenging to
picture him as the leader of a world-spanning conspiracy with
fanatical agents everywhere, who conveniently dissolve when they're
killed or knocked out. (And where did he get the airship full of
proto-Nazis?) But the world is so obviously set up in order to allow
our heroes to gallivant across the world and punch bad guys in the
face that trying to take it seriously feels like not reading it as the
author intended.
It's a little Crimson Skies (though the fixed-wing aircraft are all
real), a little Order of the Air, and quite a lot of scavenger hunt.
It feels like support material for other people to write stories like
this much more than it is a story in its own right.
Which isn't to say I may not read the next one.
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